Mississippi approved bill to protect Bitcoin miners

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The Mis­sis­sip­pi sen­ate has tak­en a sig­nif­i­cant step in sup­port­ing the growth of Bit­coin min­ing in the state. The new­ly passed “Right to Mine” bill will pro­tect Bit­coin min­ers from dis­crim­i­na­tion and rec­og­nizes the poten­tial of the activ­i­ty to dri­ve eco­nom­ic growth and sta­bi­lize the ener­gy grid.

Sen­a­tor Josh Harkins, the spon­sor of the bill, uti­lized lan­guage from the Satoshi Action Fund, a non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion ded­i­cat­ed to edu­cat­ing law­mak­ers and reg­u­la­tors on the ben­e­fits of Bit­coin. The new law makes it ille­gal to dis­crim­i­nate against ener­gy rates for Bit­coin min­ers and pro­hibits the activ­i­ty from being con­sid­ered mon­ey transmitting.

The sen­ate bill, authored by state Sen. Josh Harkins, legal­izes home dig­i­tal asset min­ing and the oper­a­tion of min­ing busi­ness­es in areas zoned for indus­tri­al use. There are already cryp­to min­ers oper­at­ing in Mis­sis­sip­pi, which has some of the low­est elec­tric­i­ty rates in the country.

Mississippi passes law protecting Bitcoin miners from discrimination
cred­its: Finbold

Home min­ing beyond exist­ing lim­its, impos­ing require­ments on min­ers beyond those local­ly applied to data cen­ters or chang­ing the zon­ing of a min­ing cen­ter with­out prop­er noti­fi­ca­tion and an oppor­tu­ni­ty to appeal. It pro­hibits the Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion from impos­ing dis­crim­i­na­to­ry rates on min­ing busi­ness­es and exempts home and busi­ness min­ers from mon­ey trans­mit­ter status.

The bill also pro­vides the state with a legal def­i­n­i­tion of “vir­tu­al cur­ren­cy.” Mis­sis­sip­pi is one of the states where the Satoshi Action Fund has been active. Fund CEO Den­nis Porter spoke at a meet­ing of the Mis­sis­sip­pi Sen­ate Finance Com­mit­tee in Jan­u­ary and men­tioned the poten­tial for cryp­to min­ers to use orphaned oil and gas wells as a pow­er source.

How­ev­er, there remains con­tention regard­ing the pos­si­ble ener­gy con­sump­tion by min­ing oper­a­tions and its impact on the envi­ron­ment. Demo­c­ra­t­ic lead­ers are there­fore push­ing envi­ron­ment reg­u­la­to­ry agen­cies to com­pel min­ing oper­a­tors to dis­close their pow­er con­sump­tion and pollution.

Mississippi Missouri Bills To Protect Bitcoin
Cred­its: Bit­coin Mgazine

At the same time, a sec­tion of law­mak­ers rec­og­nizes Bitcoin’s abil­i­ty to serve as a form of cur­ren­cy. In par­tic­u­lar, Arizona’s sen­ate recent­ly intro­duced a bill seek­ing to declare Bit­coin a legal ten­der. If the bill pass­es, state agen­cies will lever­age cryp­tocur­ren­cies to pay tax­es and fines, among others.

China’s ban on min­ing activ­i­ties helped to speed up the con­cen­tra­tion of Bit­coin min­ers in the U.S. A Report revealed that two min­ing pools in the U.S. (Foundry and Antpool) con­trol over 51% of the glob­al hash rate. Over the years, Texas has remained a choice des­ti­na­tion for min­ers, with about 30 min­ing com­pa­nies report­ed­ly oper­at­ing in the state.

How­ev­er, some U.S. law­mak­ers are push­ing to have min­ing oper­a­tors dis­close their pow­er con­sump­tion rate to reg­u­la­to­ry agen­cies. Anti-cryp­to law­mak­er Eliz­a­beth War­ren had ini­ti­at­ed a probe against the Elec­tric­i­ty Reli­a­bil­i­ty Coun­cil of Texas (ERCOT) for alleged­ly pay­ing min­ers to off­set ener­gy load.

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